Preview of Womens Singles and Dick Bree Triples this weekend – Lindsay Knight

  • February 18, 2020

While quantity might be missing there will still be plenty of quality bowlers present when two of the centre’s most significant championships are staged this weekend.

 Only 36 combinations over nine sections will contest the time-honoured Dick Bree centre triples and just 24 players in the centre’s women’s singles championship.

 But this has meant that even in the early qualifying rounds there will be plenty of cut-throat clashes.

 As just one example, in the women’s singles section play at Mairangi Bay on Saturday two heavyweights in multiple centre champions, Birkenhead’s Ruth Lynch and Orewa’s Lisa Parlane, will meet in the very first game.

 There are, though, other instances where top players will be directly vying against each other for places in post-section play on Sunday.

 Elaine McClintock (Orewa) and Connie Mathieson (Takapuna) are in the same section and Deb Presland (Helensville) and Jacqueline Broderson (Orewa) are in another.

 International Wendy Jensen (Takapuna) will have to get past the likes of the experienced Lin East (Browns Bay) and the other recent Black Jack Selina Smith (Takapuna) is an extremely tight section. Her three qualifying matches will be against three promising players in Adele Ineson (Takapuna), Theresa Rogers (Mairangi Bay) and Millie Nathan (Birkenhead).

 The Dick Bree qualifying rounds at Takapuna and Browns Bay will also be studded with several strong combinations many of whom of necessity will be clashing early.

 In the three sections at Takapuna Randall Watkins (Birkenhead), Leon Wech (Mairangi Bay), Brent Malcolm (Northcote), Duane McDonald (Riverhead), Graham Skellern (Takapuna), Murray Radojkovich (Mairangi Bay) and Terry Cullen (Helensville) have line-ups capable of taking the title.

 And the illustrious Browns Bay trio of Neil Fisher, John Walker and Colin Rogan find themselves in the same section as a Riverhead line-up skipped by a wily veteran Grant Goodwin.

 Similarly in the six sections at the Browns Bay headquarters there are a number of competitive sides, with former Black Jacks Tony Grantham and Kerry Chapman and youthful Jack Green together in the host club’s colours.

 Their main challenge could come from a seasoned Takapuna triple skipped by Norm Scott-Morrison and other top skips at Browns Bay include Ian Coombe (Mairangi Bay), Stewart Macdonald (Warkworth) and David Eades (Orewa).

 And probably the most fiercely contested section at Browns Bay will be that which comprises Chris Taylor (Takapuna), John Hindmarch (Birkenhead), Brian Nolan (Mairangi Bay) and Glen Collard (Manly).

 

Lindsay Knight